Your shadow is longest when the sun is lowest. Your fears look biggest when your light is running out.

Tiredness distorts scale. The same worry measures one size at four in the afternoon and another size at one in the morning, and nothing about the worry has changed, only the amount of light you have left. This is why decisions made at the end of a long day feel urgent and look strange by breakfast. Running low is not a good moment to take anybody’s measurements, least of all your own.

Notice when you do your hardest thinking. If it is late, or after a loss, or on an empty stomach, let the big judgments wait until morning.